Christmas 1997

Seasons Greetings to All from the Riggs Family!

Life’s little complexities never seem to end. Last year at
this time my job at Litton Aero Products seemed to be winding down and the possibility
of early retirement imminent. Then Litton inked a deal with an Orange County
firm to create a next-generation inertial navigation system to allow aircraft
to fly closer together without sacrificing safety. Since they’ve reduced the
size of the passenger seats to an absolute minimum, reducing the space between
aircraft was the next logical step. The product was scheduled for release in
early 1998, but as is often the case, the job will take at least an additional
year. Since I’m in the critical path on this project, I’ll continue at Litton
until sometime in 1999.

Mary has returned to classroom teaching at the high school
following a two-year stint as a Title VII coordinator for two schools. She taught
a language acquisition course at Cal State University
Northridge again this fall, and continues to deliver
CLAD
training for the school district each week.
CLAD
is California’s answer to the problem of limited English-proficient students
whose teachers haven’t a clue how to teach them; it is also one of the few ways
the state credential office can increase their revenues.

Officer Tofu, aka Cathy, is now working
Harbor Division
closer to her home. It is not exactly a glamorous place, but offers something
she considers a personal challenge: lots of drunks. She has taken a perverse
pleasure, since attending Drug Recognition Expert training, in arresting and
booking them, a pleasure only exceeded by being able to impound their vehicles.

Her vacation in November took her to Germany for a ten-day
tour of Berlin and environs, hosted by a half-brother she had corresponded with
but had not met. In 1963-4, I served in the U.S. Army in Germany where I met
a young German woman named Betty and fathered a son. Volker was born about four
months after I left Germany. Though I provided some support and kept in contact,
I had only seen him once, in 1976, while we were living in England. During our
trip to Germany in summer 1996, David, Mary, and I spent several days with Volker
and also met his girlfriend Marion in Berlin. We had tea with Betty and her
husband Manfred at their home near Helmstedt and met more of the family. Cathy
has suggested that Volker come to the U.S. to work; he has a Ph.D. in biotechnology
but there are few jobs in that field. The German unemployment rate earlier in
the year was the highest since 1933, the year Hitler rose to power.

Jenny is now a second-year law student in Chicago at
Northwestern, and was chosen
to work on the Journal of Criminal Law and Criminology this year doing “source
and cite” reviews. Fall brought her to California for five weekends for interviews
for a summer law job. After receiving three offers, she decided to go with
Jones Day, Reavis, and Pogue, one of
the nation’s largest law firms, and the presumption is she’ll receive an offer
from them when she graduates in May 1999. This Christmas she’ll be in California
for about three weeks soaking up sunshine or helping us mop up from El Niño,
whichever Mother Nature has in store for us.

Brian continues to dabble in soccer, Roman history, and work
at Intuit, though not necessarily in that order. Seems like a good balance to
us. Intuit has given him a couple of raises this year, both soccer teams (Monday
Night League and San Diego County Soccer League) have been winning teams, and
life is sweet. At work his responsibility is the cross-platform (Mac and PC)
interview component of TurboTax,
which will be a totally revamped version for 1998.

David retired from club and high school soccer in January,
following a series of ankle injuries that kept him out of action for many weeks.
He still plays roller hockey where the boot gives his ankle sufficient protection
from marauding blows. His summer excursion to Aunt Mary and Uncle Charlie’s
in Tennessee included some fishing, water-skiing, and lawnmowing—the last designed,
we told him, to strengthen his ankle. At school this fall he has taken on the
webmaster job for the school’s web page and
finds much of his time is spent in outwitting the ingenuity of socially-deviant
obscenity-writers who try to post messages. And that’s just the teachers. In
between times, he tries to keep up with International
Baccalaureate work, get college applications in on time, find time to go
to the gym, and keep the parents in line.

Summer saw us going in lots of directions: to a family wedding
in Colorado Springs where we took a heady trip to the top of Pike’s Peak, over
14,000 feet high; to Chicago to see Jenny and my sister Sue; to South Bend,
Indiana for a delightfully irreverent tour of Notre
Dame, courtesy of Mary’s cousin Mark, who teaches theater there; and to
Detroit, to finally put to rest some ghosts from my past. The search for my
real father culminated with a paternity test which showed that the man listed
on my birth certificate is not related to me, and since my mother died in 1964,
the mystery remains unsolved and insoluble—just another of life’s interesting
twists. The family camping trip to El Capitán was a civilized affair: sandy
beaches, gourmet meals in camp, shopping and eating out in tony Santa Barbara,
and lots of catching up on family news.

A visit from my Tennessee cousins in October gave Cathy and
me the opportunity to play hooky from work and do some sightseeing with them.
Our outing included Malibu, Venice Beach, lunch on the Santa Monica pier,
UCLA, and
Rodeo Drive (where a salesman obligingly
showed us a $215,000 pin from a jewelry case when Cathy asked, “What’s the most
expensive thing you have here?”). We finished up with
Grauman’s Chinese Theater (where
the stars’ hand and footprints are pressed into concrete), the Hollywood Walk
of Stars, and CityWalk at Universal
City.

Our Christmas celebration this year will be a bit muted as
the season coincides with Mary’s first chemotherapy session for treatment of
breast cancer diagnosed in late October following a routine mammogram. November
included two surgeries, considerable emotional upheaval, some extensive reading
by both of us on the subject, exercises to regain range of motion, further tests,
and a great deal of uncertainty. Her adjuvant therapy will be an aggressive
one owing to both the extent of the cancer and her “youth and good health,”
according to the oncologist. She‘s in an excellent and well-organized medical
program at Kaiser Permanente in Woodland Hills and has also joined a support
group to help get through the tough spots. The support from family, neighbors,
and friends has been overwhelming and we are truly grateful. This experience
has reminded us to keep focused on the things which are most important in our
lives and to take some time to watch the raindrops sparkle on the trees.

May your holiday be happy and the New Year bring you health,
peace, and contentment.